


Coward

by HidingInYourPocket



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, No dialogue just thoughts, Set post Episode 28, Someone please help Sammy, first fanfiction in King Falls AM fandom, wow i hadn’t written fanfiction in a while
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 20:29:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13842441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HidingInYourPocket/pseuds/HidingInYourPocket
Summary: After the argument Sammy and Ben had on air, after they went to Troys to start planning, Sammy returns home to an empty apartment and is left with the lingering feelings his fight with Ben had left and thoughts of how much Bens situation reminded him of his own.Post episode 28, but written with knowledge of up to episode 70, so be warned of spoilers if not caught up.





	Coward

**Author's Note:**

> So I was relistening to King Falls AM and during episode 28 I thought about the parallels between Ben and Sammy and how much that fight must have hurt Sammy because of his situation. So I got a plot bug and wrote it! Not beta read so if you find any mistakes let me know!

When Sammy got back home after breakfast at Troys, he didn’t even make it to his bed. Instead he collapsed on his couch, feeling exhausted both emotionally and physically. What had happened between him and Ben had hurt.   
“ _This shit is on me!”_  
Sammy closed his eyes. Tonight, it had been like looking in a mirror. A horrible mirror. He had tried to reassure him, in the words he wished had been said to him, but they tasted like ash in his mouth. Because it wasn’t Ben's fault but it was Sammy’s. Ben was guilt free but Sammy wasn’t. He didn’t deserve those words.   
“ _But it wasn’t just anyone. It was Emily.”_  
He remembers back when he first moved to King Falls, and his apartment was too empty and the day too quiet without the sound of his breathing mixed with Jacks and the bed to cold without another persons heat, the lies he told himself to get him through each day and night.   
He told himself it could have been anyone. He told himself if not Jack another person, another life. He told himself that it wasn’t his fault. He told himself it could have happened to anyone. And so he repeated those words back to Ben, adding in names of people they knew, hoping they didn’t sound like the old rehearsed lies he used to tell himself.  
“ _Oh this sucks? Does is suck Sammy? Uh maybe we could use this topic to get brain dead idiots to band together against what I want now! Or maybe get some extra change in the offering plate.”_  
Sammy had almost flinched at the words thrown back at him. He remembers feeling that way. The me against the world attitude. The only I can do this attitude. The self-imposed isolation, partly self-punishing, partly paranoia, and partly because he thought he was the only one who could do this. No one in King Falls would or could help him.  
“ _You just don’t get it.”_  
Sammy had almost broke then. Had almost spilled everything to him. Because he did get it. He woke up everyday feeling like a piece of him was missing, like he was living a shadow of himself. He woke up everyday losing another sliver of hope that Jack could be found. He woke up everyday and lied to himself and put on a mask to hide the pain and the suffering and the shell he felt like he lived in. He didn’t want to lie to Ben. But the words because trapped in his throat and he was stuck until he decided a half truth would work. He didn’t hear Jack disappear. Sammy didn’t hear Jack calling for him. He sometimes thinks Bens lucky for at least knowing what happened to Emily. He sometimes thinks it’s worse.  
“ _I’m not arguing you’re wrong, I’m right. And we’re moving on. So move on.”_  
Sammy was right. He knew it. He wished more people would remember Jack, he wished it wasn’t just him and Lily and only a handful or others that maybe once in a while go “Hey Lily whatever happened to your brother?” Or “I wonder whatever happened to that Jack Wright fellow”. He wished he had the support system Ben had. He wished he had had a town, or at least a family who tried to mourn with him. He wished He and Lily didn’t have to bear this alone. Because as much as he admired her, she resented him too much for them to ever support each other in this. He was alone, still is alone in his mourning and pain, and Ben wasn’t and tried to make himself feel like he was.   
“ _She’s gone. She’s fucking gone.”_  
Sammy felt the burning in his eyes of tears wanting to be shed. He remembers the morning he found the packed suitcase. The panic. The frantic search. And then he found the car and his heart simultaneously sank and sped up to what felt like he was going to have a heart attack. Jack was gone, he had thought. He was fucking gone.  
“ _Says facts! She’s gone, you said it yourself!”_ Sammy had said to Ben. But he was really saying it to himself.   
“ _This is eating me alive! She’s gone and it’s my fault! And my hands are tied. But not for long.”_  
And we’ll didn’t that just describe Sammy up. He felt it everyday, like a parasite, taking another piece of him everyday, until there was nothing left. It was his fault. He should have stopped Jack. He shouldn't have let the obsession become so consuming. He was gone and Sammy’s hands were tied. He remembers moving here and the hope he had of finding Jack. But it’s been a year. And no sign of him, no sign of anything. No fucking clues. No nothing.  
Sammy had told Ben he was in. He told Ben he’d help. Maybe it will help him get Jack back. Maybe they’d get Emily back. Maybe they’d get Jack back. Maybe he’d feel less guilty. Maybe he’d feel less useless.   
Sammy had spent all of breakfast at Troys planning with Troy and Ben. Sammy had felt the guilt pool in his stomach. His rational mind was telling him he should tell them. To just spill everything about who he really was, about Jack, about how he did know how it felt. But the bigger, coward part of his mind whispered that he would be selfish to do that. To take away from Emily’s disapearrance, to take away from Bens pain. To make it about him. And sadly the cowardice won out. He sat there with his mask on, hiding his cowardice, his guilt, his emptiness. He knew he was a horrible friend, a horrible boyfriend, horrible person.   
He hated it. He hated himself. He was just so tired.  
And months later, when Ben succeeded and Emily returned home, Sammy hated himself more for the jealousy and the other negative emotions he felt in the back of his mind. And he felt horrified by the passing though of-  
 _God I wish that were Jack instead._


End file.
